Maralys Wills is the mother of 5 boys and a girl, not to mention the wife of a fun-loving, adventurous, unpredictable husband. In Circus Without Elephants she shares her stories about meeting her husband at college and then raising their growing family together from the early 1950's through the 70's. Early on she found herself with her hands full, as her kids became involved not only in various team sports, but in other individual pursuits and activities that kept her on her toes all the time. In the intro the author admits that in their home, "There was never any peace. But neither was there boredom...Our six kids played so many sports that one weekend they competed in five different counties. Two of our sons became pioneers in the fledgling sport of hang gliding - so exotic back in the seventies that the two were featured in Sports Illustrated." The oldest son, Bobby, at the age of 19 told his parents, "I don't want to do what everyone else does. I want to be different!" And when a nurse commented to another Wills boy that he must've had a wild time growing up with so many brothers, he replied with, "We did. Our friends didn't come over to play. They came over to watch."
(I guess I could relate just a little to Mrs. Wills. I only have 3 kids (2 boys & a girl), whom I homeschooled for 17 years, but they did lots of crazy stuff, like making a zipline in the front yard, building a potato gun out of pvc pipe, using our waterbed mattress as a trampoline in the backyard, and building a Tesla coil in the garage.)
Yet being a member of the Wills family was not always fun and games. Inevitably the crazy, energetic boys sometimes ran into difficulties at school or with neighbors. On more than one occasion the Wills found themselves in awkward situations, which Maralys tells with hilarity. And unfortunately they suffer heartache and tragedy, which made for sad reading. But the strong bonds of love in the Wills family help them to recover from the worst of circumstances, and they always managed to bounce back and continue on.
The author goes into more detail about their family tragedies in her other book,Higher Than Eagles: The Tragedy and Triumph of an American Family, but focuses more on the positive aspects of their life in this book. She apologizes if A Circus without Elephants makes it sound like their lives "have been mostly amusing. Well, mostly that's true. Because, along with sadness, happiness is surely our other reality."
(I guess I could relate just a little to Mrs. Wills. I only have 3 kids (2 boys & a girl), whom I homeschooled for 17 years, but they did lots of crazy stuff, like making a zipline in the front yard, building a potato gun out of pvc pipe, using our waterbed mattress as a trampoline in the backyard, and building a Tesla coil in the garage.)
Yet being a member of the Wills family was not always fun and games. Inevitably the crazy, energetic boys sometimes ran into difficulties at school or with neighbors. On more than one occasion the Wills found themselves in awkward situations, which Maralys tells with hilarity. And unfortunately they suffer heartache and tragedy, which made for sad reading. But the strong bonds of love in the Wills family help them to recover from the worst of circumstances, and they always managed to bounce back and continue on.
The author goes into more detail about their family tragedies in her other book,Higher Than Eagles: The Tragedy and Triumph of an American Family, but focuses more on the positive aspects of their life in this book. She apologizes if A Circus without Elephants makes it sound like their lives "have been mostly amusing. Well, mostly that's true. Because, along with sadness, happiness is surely our other reality."
